I apologize if this seems a tad foolish, or if the question has been posted before, but I am relatively new to this forum and perhaps have not merited yet the wisdom that preceeds intelligence. But anyhow, I have muttered my apologies thereof, and off we go. I am a grade 10 student, currently studying in Canada. Although a 12 year Christian (or perhaps not), the ongoing and inevitable conflict arisen between religion and science has indefinitley caught my interest. In accordance to the Christian faith, the world was created by a supreme deity, in which the first man was created from dust, and the woman hereafter. Tempted by a serpent society has come to know as a deceiver, they were cast out, and made to multiply and toil by the sweat of their brow until the coming of Christ. As we are currently studying Geology and Evolution in science class, I have been fairly introduced to a myriad of theories involving Man's journey, including the works of Darwin and Natural Selection. Though perhaps my topic aspires only to be the haste of stupidity and the ramblings of a 15 year old girl, I am curious as to see a Satanist's point of view on this matter. Since, incorporated into Satanic philosophy entails that a Satanist believes neither in the existance of Heaven or Hell, then what does one believe about the origins of Man? Science and what is has "proven"? However, just to remind and not reprimand, science is defined as a set of hypothetical and educated theories through observations, and although seemingly a very rational asset to human knowledge, does not promise accuracy. Therefore, what does one believe in concordance to the philosophies of Anton LeVay?

Well we certainly don't believe the whole Genesis story. Personally the answers to these types of questions (origin of Man, origin of the universe etc) aren't that important. I don't need to have an answer to them. One of these days we'll probably find conclusive proof of something, and until then I'll just go with the best theory science can currently provide.

I think it's more important that we ask these types of questions than answer them. The search for knowledge is at least as important as knowledge itself.

You've certainly knocked on the right door for that. However, I trust you realize that Satanists are individuals and that thus, answers will vary in their details, although it is not unrealistic to expect a common thread to said answers...

Creation myths are present throughout religious history, even millenia before christianity or even monotheism for that matter.

Since, incorporated into Satanic philosophy entails that a Satanist believes neither in the existance of Heaven or Hell, then what does one believe about the origins of Man?

The belief in the Hell/Heaven dichotomy is one thing; the question regarding the specific origins of Man is another. If one believes (faith/creed) in Creation myths, the answer to the origins and end of Man are self-contained. The question of Man's origin, however, does not need to rest on a belief system.

Religion is one thing, science is another -- though most would argue that science is just another set of beliefs (although more "objective").

As for the Doktor's take on it, I would not presume to speak for him, but would rather suggest you study his writings and find out for yourself.

I, personally, do feel that my life is not about where I came from, but rather about how I live it now, and about how I get it to move where I want it to go. Hence, "destiny".

To use your own words, though I have just put it differently: this is what does this one believes in concordance to the philosophies of Anton LeVay...

Satanists are Individuals also - there doesnt exist a "The One" idea.
Satanism also removes almost any kind of duality - the only thing that exist may be positive/negative - its 'good' if it health you, its 'bad' if it destroys you. But dont treat good and bad in a religional issue. Here it is more positive/negative, then everythin' else. For example i like the Book: The Seth Material by Jane Roberts. Its a old (60s years) non-fictional one but i think it gives the best views about this Creation/Evolution Question, for me at least. Science is a good thing but dont has answers to everything - dont let science interfere with religion. I guess you truly can think that science is almost right but science encs somewhere. For example i dont belive in the ultimate end of a individual (death). You cannot destroy pure energy and i think the Human is more then its parts - if you burn a paper it isnt destroyd but it changes its aggregate type. So it becomes something else, changes its form but doesnt just fade away. You dont need to belive everythin but you should read it it gives interesting views about this whole topic - you can make your own decissions afterwards Whatever you may belive at last - its better to know and Satanism is a "here-and-now" religion.

Interesting enough I should be teaching 10th graders such as yourself evolution within the next year. I have yet to see any evidence of anything but evolution accounting for man's origin, and my view are very much in line with the modern synthesis of Darwinism and in reguards to specifically human evolution my veiws are very much similar to that of Desmond Morris.

Quote: In accordance to the Christian faith, the world was created by a supreme deity, in which the first man was created from dust, and the woman hereafter. Tempted by a serpent society has come to know as a deceiver, they were cast out, and made to multiply and toil by the sweat of their brow until the coming of Christ.

You say this so factually, but many sects of Christianity have now interpreted this to be a "symbolic" creation, or rather a metaphor. The Catholic church itself has said that there is no contridiction between Christianity and evolution. I also know many middle school and high school protestant teachers who both accept and teach evolution.

I would also like to add that a lot of modern medical research is based on evolution and use information about genetic similarities and evolutionary relationships to determine who drugs tested on animals will effect humans as well as how plant/fungi derived treatments will interact with humans due to similar chemicals in certain pathways.

In the world of science, evolution is not "just a theory" there is no sizable minority who disregaurd evolution, only a few straglers who speak loudly against the other 99% of their collegues.

There is, however, an intresting debate on how fast evolution occurs. I am very interested in the idea of punctuated equilbrium, which is a fast evolution in leaps due to sudden mutations. There are populations of Drosophilia that have speciated in a matter of a couple generations. These species are I believed refered to as the painted fruit files and are native to Hawaii.

If you are interested in learning what evolutionary biologist have observed and understand about evolution, then I suggest you purchase a evolution text book from a college textbook supply store and read On the Origin of Species in its entirety.

Also, do some reasearh into just how many sects of Chrisitanity accept evolution. Most of the controversy in the states is in protestant majority areas and primarily in the south.

Even private Catholic school's now teach evolution and it is a shame that religion is holding back knowledge in public high schools.

My dad has been watching "Dr." James Kennedy, a televangelist who is trying to ban the teaching of evolution, as well as homosexual marriage, etc., and it just disgusts me how idiotic he sounds at the pulpit. As expected, his only "evidence" for creation is that humans are so complex that it had to have occurred by design, as opposed to "blind chance."

The "blind chance" thing is not an accurate... idea. I like to think of this analogy: "Blind chance" would be like shooting one round from a precision rifle at a target 500 yards away, with the bullseye being the human race, and hoping for a hit. On the other hand, Natural Selection would be more like taking the same shot, except instead of one shot, you take 200 billion shots. Of course, not all rounds would hit the bullseye, and those are the inferior races. The target would act as the medium for Natural Selection in this case. Maybe that's not a perfect analogy, but hey...

I once got into an argument about this with a militantly Christian Vietnam vet! He asked me, "So you believe that you crawled out of the water and came from a monkey?" I thought of a good response later: "So you believe you appeared out of thin air?" He also asked the classic, "If humans came from apes, why do apes still exist?" I think anyone with half a brain could see why they do.

Quote: In accordance to the Christian faith, the world was created by a supreme deity, in which the first man was created from dust, and the woman hereafter.

This belief,for indeed it is such, is not of Christian origin. The Sumerians were its original authors. Much of what Judaism and Christianity now call their own was shamelessly plagiarized from these inventors of the wheel.
A great link to some follow up information can be located at the Superhighway to Hell site.
Pagan ChristsAs for pitting creationism against Evolution, I would suggest you stop drawing lines in the sand. This type of behavior will , now and in the future, greatly hinder your ability to understand and, subsequently, learn many things.
Science does not ask for beliefs, but results. It does not require one to blindly accept, but to boldly challenge.

Quote: Science and what is has "proven"? However, just to remind and not reprimand, science is defined as a set of hypothetical and educated theories through observations, and although seemingly a very rational asset to human knowledge, does not promise accuracy.

What specific 'non-accuracies' are you referring to?
The results yielded through scientific study enormously outweigh the beliefs of ANY religion, not just Christianity.

Naturally, I don't literally believe in the Genesis account, however, I think the story carries interesting and powerful symbolism for me as a Satanist, because it implies that the Judeo-Christian deity considers knowledge a bad thing (or at least, a bad thing for anyone but him to have), and places unrealistically high standards on his ignorant, curious little humans (it was akin to placing a mysterious box in front of two toddlers and saying, "no touch, or I'll splenge you"--they won't be able to resist, and after all, they don't know what the consequence means!), while the Satan-like figure slithers (well, waddles, since he still had legs at that point) onto the scene and shows the people how to acquire that knowledge.

That being said, I generally accept the theories of science that are present at this point, and I eagerly await further discoveries and development in this regard. Obviously, everything is not yet known, but good things take time.

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"Gentlemen, the verdict is guilty, on all ten counts of first-degree stupidity. The penalty phase will now begin."--Divine, "Pink Flamingos."

Quote: (...) the ongoing and inevitable conflict arisen between religion and science has indefinitley caught my interest. (...) As we are currently studying Geology and Evolution in science class, I have been fairly introduced to a myriad of theories involving Man's journey, including the works of Darwin and Natural Selection. (...) Therefore, what does one believe in concordance to the philosophies of Anton LeVay?

"Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his 'divine spiritual and intellectual development', has become the most vicious animal of all!"

Hmmm, though I dont prescribe to creationism I thought I'd throw this into the debate.

Mankind is now reaching the state of science where creationism is fully possible, we are now creating new species and forms of life in the lab on a daily basis.

When this science is finnaly mature we may very start creating inteligent life. That life will have full rights to preach creationism. It has always been my observation that the future usually repeats the past, though we are of the same genetic structure as all life on earth, the huge gaps in evolutionary science give me pause to wonder.

If Dawinism is true then man is doomed to failure through the use of science. I elaborate, 50 years ago people with deformations and other birth defects usually died. With the advent of modern medicinal practices these people live and go onto produce children carrying these genes and adding them to the pool the more this happens the weaker that pool becomes and eventually every person will carry some of these genetic strings weaking the species as a whole. How is that survival of the fittest ?. Or has mankind finnaly stepped above the rules for survival and now must start writing new ones for himself........

Creation or Evolution? This is not an either/or question.
Creation (in the biblical sense) is a theory(I use this word EXTREMELY loosely) that attempts to explain the origins of everything, including life.
Evolution is a theory (in the true sense of the word) that attempts to explain a specific phenomenon. (the diversity of life)
There are a good portion of creationists that believe in evolution too, the two aren't incompatible.

If anyone ever conclusively figures out how life originated, it will be very interesting. but I doubt it would impact my life that much.
I have more important things to think about

Edited by Dan_Dread (05/07/0411:02 AM)

_________________________ "One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike and yet it is the most precious thing we have." - Albert Einstein
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Quote:Well we certainly don't believe the whole Genesis story. Personally the answers to these types of questions (origin of Man, origin of the universe etc) aren't that important. I don't need to have an answer to them. One of these days we'll probably find conclusive proof of something, and until then I'll just go with the best theory science can currently provide.

I think it's more important that we ask these types of questions than answer them. The search for knowledge is at least as important as knowledge itself.

That's sort of how I see it. NOW is everything to me. I honestly wouldn't want to know how it all started because I enjoy this life BECAUSE of these mysteries, not in spite of them. However I do have my own idea of what the "big picture" is.

I don't believe in "The beginning and End". I believe in beginnings and endings . I think the Universe destroys and recreates itself over and over. Big Bang, Great Callapse, over and over. I would even go so far as to say that life comes and goes and plays an important role. I think the universe is God and WE are Gods awareness. We are the eyes of space.

I don't see us as being seperate from the Universe (multiverse?), and I don't mean that in a spiritual way.

Edited by johnharperjr (05/07/0405:29 PM)

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They are doomed because they cannot even glimpse beyond the construct that their masters have put into place. Their masters are doomed because they believe in the construct they created.

We were created from the combining souls of our parents and evolved from nothing, a baby, to the persona you look at in the mirror.

_________________________
"DIG DEEP WITHIN
I PULL OUT SOMETHING SPECIAL
I AM DYING TO SEE
WHAT IN ME IS SO SPECIAL
DIG DEEP WITHIN
I PULL OUT SOMETHING SPECIAL
NOW I SEE
MY SON IS SO SPECIAL TO ME"
original writings by Michael "EVIL" Maris

>we are now creating new species and forms of life in the >lab on a daily basis [...]>When this science is finnaly [sic] mature we may very >start creating inteligent [sic] life. That life will have >full rights to preach creationism.

The ability to manually create a new species does not lend any credibility to creationism. I've seen landscapers manually grow grass where the ground used to be bare, but that doesn't mean that the world's grass was created by intelligent design.

Creationism is the claim that species are created in whole by a "creator". This is NOT what we see when we look at the earth.

>the huge gaps in evolutionary science give me pause to >wonder.

What "huge gaps" are these? The only noticable gaps I see in the evolution/creationism debate is embarassingly huge one in creationism -- the inability to answer the question "So then who created the big invisible man?"

>If Dawinism [sic] is true

Do you mean darwinism (which is a philosophy) or evolution (which is a science)?

>then man is doomed to failure through the use of science. >[...] How is that survival of the fittest ?.

If you're trying to point out that human technological advancements work against natural selection, then I agree. However, that doesn't mean evolution is "failing". If you're one of the many who have been mislead into believing that evolution is about species all turning into "higher" species, you have much to learn on the subject.

OK! OK! It was me! I did it. I created everything! I know I should have told you guys like,10,000 years ago, but I didn't want to get nailed to a cross like that deluded Jesus guy who I, well, framed..........

sorry.

_________________________
They are doomed because they cannot even glimpse beyond the construct that their masters have put into place. Their masters are doomed because they believe in the construct they created.

>In accordance to the Christian faith, the world was >created by a supreme deity, in which the first man was >created from dust, and the woman hereafter.

It's not very accurate to say that this is all "in accordance to the Christian faith". First of all, this same Genesis story is also found in the scriptures of Jews and Muslims. Second, and more importantly, the only Christians who believe this are those who take a LITERAL interpretation of the first book of Genesis. As somebody else pointed out, some Christian denominations such as Catholicism are NOT fundamentalists when it comes to the Bible, and furthermore see no conflict between evolution and belief in a creator.

>As we are currently studying Geology and Evolution in >science class, I have been fairly introduced to a myriad >of theories involving Man's journey,

You have to be careful with the word "theory", because it means different things in different contexts. "Music Theory" is the formal analysis and classification of what makes up music and how these parts relate to each other. In general english use, "theory" means a guess, a hunch. In science, that's called a hypothesis. Scientific theories are models based on observation that hold up to evidence and the scientific method.

I mention this because in the ever tiresome evoltion/creationist debate, the creationists always try using the fallacious argument that evolution is "just a theory". Well, gravity is "just a theory" too.

Anyway, sorry if all the above was stuff you already knew. This is just one of those topics I like so much that I tend to ramble on about it! So to get to your question:

>I am curious as to see a Satanist's point of view on this >matter.

The Church of Satan does not have an official stance on this debate. The question of "how we got here" simply isn't part of our doctrines. Since Satanism is a non-theistic religion, we find the question to be ultimately irrelevant. Though one of the core beliefs of Satanism is that man is indeed an animal, and most Satanists feel that science lends more credibility to that observation.

As a Satanist, one thing that I will say about creationism vs. evolution is that the debate is ultimately not one of science, but politics. The debate is entirely pushed by creationists, 99.9% of whom are Christian fundamentalists. This should make Satanists particularly skeptical. And the debate is largely only happening in the US, a country with a disproportionate amount of religious people. Contrary to what creationists say, there is no debate in the scientific community that evolution did and does occur. There are different views on the detailed mechanics of evolution, but no credible scientist says that evolution is non-existent.

>However, just to remind and not reprimand, science is >defined as a set of hypothetical and educated theories>through observations, and although seemingly a very >rational asset to human knowledge, does not promise >accuracy.

Good point! Science doesn't claim to have 100% truth on a particular matter, since there's always a way of imagining some hypothetical alternative explaination. However, evolution still offers the best explanation so far. Creationism is not a science, because it starts out with a conclusion, and then desparately tries to find and change data to back it up.

....I was expecting you to ask why I put the anus so close to the genitals.

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They are doomed because they cannot even glimpse beyond the construct that their masters have put into place. Their masters are doomed because they believe in the construct they created.